


Bond

by fadagaski



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Valkyrie lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 13:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6471073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadagaski/pseuds/fadagaski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The drums sound the arrival of a war party from the south. "Looks like Rock Riders," says Corpus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bond

**Author's Note:**

> iphysnikephoros and infinitefuriosa requested: Val & Furiosa "I thought you were dead".

It's the drums that wake her.

Pounding like the hearts of a dozen fierce Immorta stomping the earth again. She cracks her eyes open - dry and crusted with fever, the right still barely functioning - and coughs. 

Her chest hurts and her skin hurts and everything is fire and blood. Capable tries to keep her still, tells her to ignore it. But the drumming is under her ribcage, drawing her out. 

Something is coming.

A hundred Pups scurry through the labyrinth, too disciplined to make much noise but all of them wide-eyed. They fall into step behind her as she staggers out of the bloodshed. The oldest ones flit at her sides with sturdy shoulders and bowed heads. She'd be annoyed at their hovering, but then she has to face the stairs.

"Report," she wheezes - very much not the stern war commander - as the Pups deposit her at the Tip of the Tongue where she can peer over the carved teeth to the Wretched thousands below. Cheedo and Toast are there already, the both of them staring at her with tight eyes.

Corpus pulls away from the telescope. "War party from the south," he growls, rough. "Looks like Rock Riders." 

Furiosa closes her eyes, forehead pinched from more than the agony of her ribs. She knew she would have to pay this debt. She just didn't think it would be this soon. 

What can she offer them? They have no guzz. The Riders have their own supply of water up in the mountains. She can maybe buy them off with some food, but only a little, and only til the next time they come demanding more.

What can she fight them with? She has War Pups and sick War Boys, two mothers and four sisters and a sea of rotting bodies at the base. Vehicles, weapons, ammunition - these are things she can count on her one hand. 

"What do we do?" asks Cheedo.

"We should fight," says Toast.

Toast is eager, and so very clever, but what Furiosa needs now is someone who can fight the long odds. Someone who can capture a War Rig while chained to a car door and a half-dead War Boy. Someone who can take a machete and a couple lance-ends and blaze victory in the mist. 

But he's gone. She's barely standing. The Citadel's future stands on a knife's edge.

They're fucked.

"Let's do war," she says, like boulders grinding in her throat. 

Corpus tries to catch her eye - he knows, perhaps better than anyone, what their odds are - but Furiosa lets the whispering Pups lead her downstairs, Toast trailing in her wake. She knows in the War tower the straggling remnants of Joe's mighty army will be rummaging for lances and grenades. The drums rumble on. 

By the time she's reached the bottom of the tower, black spots are dancing in her eyes, and her lungs are fire. She has to lean against a wall and suck in sharp breaths that spear through her abdomen. A quick check, and she's honestly surprised that her sides aren't pouring with blood. 

Toast reappears - Furiosa hadn't realised she had gone - and her face is confused. "They're waving a white flag." 

Furiosa can hear them, the ticking hum of idling bike engines and the distinct absence of the Wretched murmuring. "Trap maybe." Speaking is like choking up broken glass. She levers off the wall, wavering on her feet. "I'll go. You stay." Toast opens her mouth to argue, but Furiosa holds up a halting hand. "Cover my six." Mouth mulish, Toast nods and swings her rifle off her shoulder. 

It takes every ounce of willpower to force her aching body to walk under its own power into the blazing desert sunlight. The Rock Riders are clustered on the drive to the War tower. They are so well-camouflaged they could pass for a lumpy jut of rock tumbled from the mesa's roof. The white flag flaps like bird wings in the wind. 

She expects to be shot. With every agonising step forward, breath rattling in her chest, she expects the sudden bite of a bullet, the bone-shattering force, the tear of skin and muscle and organ, the gush and splatter of blood. She's ready for it. She can only hope that Toast will snipe her killer, and the pitiful defence of Citadel will do the rest. Until next time. 

One foot in front of the other. In moments she is at the front wheel of the leader, and she is not dead. Furiosa looks up, blinking in surprise at the goggles staring at her. With slow, exaggerated movements, the Rider lifts their hands to their face and slides the goggles up their head, the scarf from their mouth. 

Jagged teeth and dark eyes. Not someone Furiosa has had dealings with before. 

"Imperator," they snarl. Furiosa schools her face to something blank, unimpressed. "You destroyed our canyon. Twice. We demand payment." 

"You tried to kill me." Rasping breath. "Wanted the Rig." 

Jagged teeth in a jagged smile. "One strike for another. You still owe us." 

Between the heat of the sun and the slicing pain through her chest, Furiosa doesn't have the energy to argue. If it's her life they want, they can have it. "Fine. What do you want?"

The smile widens. "We will take a tower for our new home."

Furiosa blinks. "You can't be serious."

The Rider shuffles on their bike. "We have no home. You have no fighters. This deal is fair. But I think you question our motives?" A sharp whistle through those jagged teeth; there's movement amongst the rust-coloured motorbikes, and one rolls forward with a sidecar attached. Furiosa looks at the body there -

And gasps from more than just physical pain. 

Hair black as midnight, skin the colour of sand at sunset, and scars scored across her face like tiretracks through the dunes. Furiosa stumbles over, pulled by invisible string, and falls to her knees. The impact jars all the way through her, and the pain is a comfort because it means this is real.

"Val?" she whispers. Her fingers reach out and just brush over the arm resting along the edge of the sidecar. One eye cracks open to reveal water-blue eyes. 

"Hello."

The world is blurring and Furiosa is drowning and her face _hurts_ with the amount of emotion trying to express itself. "I thought you were dead."

Val smiles, and closes her eye. Her fingers grip Furiosa's hard when she grabs on.

"I think this secures a deal?" the Rock Rider says.

Furiosa bows her head and trembles with the force of her joy.


End file.
